Football - Swans put promotion back on track

Hastings Utd 0 Walton & Hersham 1 SWANS repeated their earlier 1-0 win at Stompond Lane to secure the double over Hastings, at the same time putting their automatic promotion hopes back on track after a couple of disappointing results, and regaining second spot in the table.

The Sussex club will probably consider themselves somewhat unfortunate not to have got something out of the game as they created the bulk of the goalmouth action without managing to breakthrough, whereas Walton & Hersham had just two real chances.

Both fell to Paul Harkness, and he struck the post with the first opportunity, before scoring the winning goal with the second.

With Scott Edgar out injured and his natural deputy, Chris Morrison, unavailable, Swans had to cope without a target man up front, Mark Nwokeji partnering Harkness.

However both Simon Sobihy and Wes Goggin were fit to return for the Walton side.

Swans got off to a bright start, inside the first minute Sam Keevill played the ball to Goggin in the box to force a defender to clear over his own bar.

Harkness then swung over a good cross from the left that just failed to find Goggin’s head. Hastings failed to clear the danger and Swans had a golden opportunity to score when Neil Lampton volleyed the ball back across goal from beyond the far-post.

But the home side began to put on the pressure, with Sawyer’s accurate crossing from both flanks a particular problem.

Sherwood’s strong shot through a crowded goalmouth following a Sawyer corner brought a good block from goalkeeper Nick Gindre, who then had to back pedal to just get a hand to Sawyer’s deep cross from the right, with Adam Thompson having to head behind for one of several corner kicks.

Ducille then should have done better than to loop a header over from Sawyer’s left-side cross.

Swans weathered that particular period of pressure and began to cause problems at the other end, with Hastings goalkeeper Brown doing well to prevent Harkness’s low cross from the left from reaching Nwokeji.

Hastings again came strong at the end of the first-half with Sawyer again at the forefront of the home side’s attack.

Ray put a header wide at the far-post from Sawyer’s free-kick from wide on the left, with Gindre then just getting his fingers to a free kick from Sawyer from the other side to get the ball behind.

From Sawyer’s resulting corner-kick Ray’s strong header was blocked away by the defence.

But Hastings’ best chance came in first-half stoppage-time when Rook got clear in to Swans’ box on the left, only for Lampton to get in a superbly timed, last-ditch tackle to prevent what looked a certain goal.

Ten minutes after the resumption Gindre was well placed to take a snap shot from Rowland, with Swans immediately breaking to the other end.

The ball fell to Harkness on the left, who twisted before firing in a left-foot, half-volley that beat Brown, only for the ball to come back off the left-post.

Lee Riddell and Tristan Frontin replaced Keevill and Goggin, and Riddell soon popped up on the right to drive in a good cross that Brown did well to dive and cut out.

Walton & Hersham looked a much better outfit in the second-half and Lampton burst forward before sending in a half-volley from 25 yards that flew just wide.

Then with just under a quarter of an hour left Thompson played a long ball forward to pick out Harkness, who shrugged past a defender before slotting the ball past Brown from just inside the box.

Swans had to withstand a tense final few minutes as Hastings sent a number of free kicks and corners into the box, but they stood firm, the biggest scare coming close to time when the ball was stabbed wide from close-in following Sands’ long throw from the right.